IPA Payments Pod Innovative Payments Association

The IPA recently held its first Fintech Elevator. The online event gave participants a chance to make industry connections and win a membership in the Innovation Payments Association.
In this episode, we talk with one of our winners, Frizzmo, an app and card account that combines spending tools and financial literacy modules to teach kids about money management. In addition, it offers schools a way to raise money through an automated donation tool built into the spending tools.
We talk about why Frizzmo was created, how it works, and what it’s like to launch a company during a pandemic.
Interested in joining Frizzmo as an IPA member and helping to shape the future of payments? Reach out today and talk to us about the benefits of joining. Go to www.ipa.org  to learn more.

Few areas of payments are more complicated than health care benefits delivered to individuals. While health plans want to give consumers more control over how they spend their dollars, the tax code restricts how those dollars can be used.
For years, health plans that wanted to provide consumers with money for over-the-counter medicines and incent behaviors like healthy eating or getting a flu shot, had to resort to an assortment of payment tools. Checks and gift cards might be distributed before or after the fact. Consumers might need to use a prepaid or debit card, but then report what they bought and prove it fit within a plan’s guidelines. Whatever the methods used, the process was cumbersome and not always effective.
InComm Health Care has developed a system that can streamline these payments. The company’s system combines point of sale services and a multipurpose card to make the payment process as easy as any card payment. The system can filter eligible items down to the SKU level, and automatically pull from different pools of funds available to the cardholder for everything from medicines to healthy food.
This system earned Incomm the IPA’s Payments Innovation award. In this episode, we talk with InComm about its capabilities and where things go from here.
InComm is a member of the IPA. Go to www.ipa.org  to learn more about the benefits of membership.

The growth of Fintech has led banks to examine opportunities in acting as a sponsor bank and offer Banking as a Service.
This offers opportunities for innovative banks, but success is not guaranteed.
In this episode, Michael Haney, the head of product strategy at Galileo, discusses the tools needed to be successful in Banking as a Service (BaaS).  We cover how to identify opportunities, what banks need to have in place to launch a program, and how to manage the business.
The IPA thanks our member sponsor, Netspend, for helping to make this show possible.
This podcast was recorded on May 18, 2023. Things may have changed by the time you hear it.

Technology has reshaped everything about banking, including one of its most basic products: deposits.
In this episode, we discuss how Banking as a Service and fintechs have reshaped the landscape for consumer deposits, the regulatory response, and what this means for the risk profile of banks.
Joining us are Kiah Lau Haslett, Banking and Fintech Editor at Bank Director, Alex Johnson, Founder of Fintech Takes, Jason Mikula, Publisher of Fintech Business Weekly, and Brian Tate. President and CEO of the Innovative Payments Association.
This podcast was recorded on September 26, 2023. Things may have changed by the time you hear it.

The IPA recently held its first Fintech Elevator. The online event gave participants a chance to make industry connections and win a membership in the Innovation Payments Association.
In this episode, we talk with the founder of one of our winners, Invest Sou Sou, about how being more social with our household finances can lead to greater success. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Fonta Gilliam was a diplomat who have worked in a number of countries around the world. She saw a different approach to managing money than what is common in the United States. She believes that getting people to share more about their finances will help them achieve their goals.
To this end, she founded Invest Sou Sou, which offers financial institutions a platform that their customers can use to create social networks to help them reach goals. The use cases can range from individuals saving to buy a house to groups savings towards a common goal.
You can learn more by visiting their site at: https://investsousou.com/. If you want to create a Sou Sou wallet of your own, visit: https://investsousou.com/elementor-55/how-sou-sou-works/.
Interested in joining Invest Sou Sou as an IPA member and helping to shape the future of payments? Reach out today and talk to us about the benefits of joining. Go to www.ipa.org  to learn more.

While the topic of financial services regulation is not being discussed much in this election, nevertheless, the outcome of the vote will determine the shape and tone of the regulatory landscape.
In this episode, we talk with Dee Buchanan and Gordon Taylor, principals at Ogilvy Government Relations, about the various ways the 2020 election could go and what each outcome might mean for the regulatory environment.
This episode was recorded before the news broke about the President’s COVID19 diagnosis, so we did not discuss its effects on the campaign. However, the analysis in this conversation remains the same.
In addition to this podcast, the IPA will continue to monitor the election and host an election update webinar for its members on October 14, and a discussion about potential regulatory threats to fintechs on October 21.
Go to www.ipa.org  to learn more.